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Wake Up and Live - Chapter 9 - The Task of the Imagination

Chapter 9
ALREADY imagination's contribution to a productive life has been considered somewhat, and its help has been called on in the matter of making that favorable mental climate which is necessary if we are to produce our best work. But imagination has innumerable other uses, it can be helpful in ways so diverse that the same faculty hardly seems to be in operation in all of them.
In everyday life, we tend to think of the imagination as something which may, perhaps, be spoken of as "useful" to artists of all sorts, but as being almost the opposite of useful in the lives of practical men and women. To use one's imagination, generally, is thought of as taking a holiday, as allowing the wits to go wool-gathering, the mind to relax and sun itself. After indulging it - for we commonly think of the exercise of the imagination as being in some way an indulgence - we may return refreshed to the commonplace, or we may find we have lost time, missed contacts, got out of step with our companions and helpers: in short, suffered for allowing one part of the mind free play.
As a consequence we look warily at the imagination, often seeking to check it, or, in some extreme cases, even eradicate it. That it can be of immense benefit in the most prosaic affairs is an idea at which many readers will balk. But that is because they do think of the imagination as a faculty which always wanders unchecked, which must be permitted to make its own rules and occasions, which is incapable of being directed, and, to a great extent, controlled - put at the service of the reason and the will. Thus controlled and directed, it becomes the mature creative imagination, the spiritual faculty of which Joubert speaks.

Wake Up and Live - Chapter 9 - The Task of the Imagination

2.
The Task Of The Imagination - 1
Chapter 9
ALREADY imagination's contribution to a productive life
has been considered somewhat, and its help has been called
on in the matter of making that favorable mental climate
which is necessary if we are to produce our best work. But
imagination has innumerable other uses, it can be helpful in
ways so diverse that the same faculty hardly seems to be in
operation in all of them.
In everyday life, we tend to think of the imagination as
something which may, perhaps, be spoken of as "useful" to
artists of all sorts, but as being almost the opposite of useful
in the lives of practical men and women. To use one's
imagination, generally, is thought of as taking a holiday, as
allowing the wits to go wool-gathering, the mind to relax
and sun itself. After indulging it - for we commonly think of
the exercise of the imagination as being in some way an
indulgence - we may return refreshed to the commonplace,
or we may find we have lost time, missed contacts, got out
of step with our companions and helpers: in short, suffered
for allowing one part of the mind free play.
As a consequence we look warily at the imagination, often
seeking to check it, or, in some extreme cases, even
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3.
The Task Of The Imagination - 2
eradicate it. That it can be of immense benefit in the most
prosaic affairs is an idea at which many readers will balk.
But that is because they do think of the imagination as a
faculty which always wanders unchecked, which must be
permitted to make its own rules and occasions, which is
incapable of being directed, and, to a great extent,
controlled - put at the service of the reason and the will.
Thus controlled and directed, it becomes the mature
creative imagination, the spiritual faculty of which Joubert
speaks.
But consider a few of the many things which it can usefully
do for us: it can help us to stand away from ourselves
somewhat, holding the emotions and prejudices which often
keep us from seeing clearly well in hand. By so doing we
may find that we are thwarting our own best interests
constantly, and can replace the disadvantageous activities -
still in the imagination - by others which will bring about
happier results.
It can be turned on the character of an opponent or an
uncooperative "helper" while we study him as an author
might study a character whom he hopes to place in a book.
Report excerpted from The Strangest Secret Library

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The Task Of The Imagination - 3
We can get clues to his motives, and thereafter watch to see
whether we have been right about them, thus saving
ourselves from such mistakes as being too brusque with a
sensitive person, or too laxly indulgent with another who
will exploit us if we give him or her the opportunity.
Nor does this begin to exhaust the ways in which
imagination, instead of betraying us into reverie and
resignation to unsatisfactory conditions - instead, even, of
being employed merely as a means of recreation - can
contribute to the making of a good life. Working as far as
possible under orders from the will, and hand-in-hand with
reason, it can explore new fields for our efforts, can bring
back to us some of our original freshness towards our work
which we have lost by fatigue and routine; it can even
perform such a severely practical function for us as to
discover new markets for our wares, or new ways in which
to use old talents.
These ideas are worth a little closer examination here, and
later the insertion of some exercises in using the
imagination.
We need not belong to that group which, as we say, "can
only learn by experience." Having discovered that much of
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The Task Of The Imagination - 4
our dread of engaging in new activity comes from
unconquered fear of the pain which we formerly met when
we began to go forward, we can decide that some of our
"trial-and-error" attempts at managing life shall go on in
the mind, in the imagination, where it is, to all intents,
painless. We can learn to look ahead imaginatively, and so
save ourselves from blunders, ineffectuality, loss of energy
and time.
First of all, we can use imagination to see ourselves and our
work in some perspective.
Everyone knows how a child identifies himself utterly with
all he owns and does, with all those who care for him. He is
outraged if asked to share his possessions, the breaking of a
beloved toy is a tragedy, if it rains on the day when a picnic
was planned one would think the sun could never shine for
him again. If a mother or nurse leaves him while he is
awake, he has been most treacherously betrayed. In fact,
much early education has as its one goal the teaching of the
little egotist to see himself in somewhat truer relation to his
world. More or less successfully, each of us has had to learn
this lesson; but it is almost never fully understood. To our
last days there is still a trace of that childish egotism in us -
Report excerpted from The Strangest Secret Library

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sometimes so very much more than a trace that an adult
suffers, resents, sulks, and complains in a way only too
reminiscent of the nursery.
There is no success which does not entail a relationship
between the individual and others. (That artist who "works
only to please himself" is a chimera, as mythical a beast as
the hippogriff.) Since that is so, there will be occasions on
which it is immensely important for us to see ourselves
clearly, and in scale with those around us. Each of us at
some time is in a position to have to say to himself "Here
am I; here is the work I do; here are those I hope to help
and please by this work." Imagination can help us to stand
back and see that relationship in perspective, can analyze its
parts and suggest to us the full scope of what we have
undertaken.
The infantile adult can never see himself at one remove;
even less can he see his work or the object he has made
quite as it is, undistorted by the over-estimation of personal
pride, or the under-estimation of humility and fear.
Consequently he is never in a position to know just where
his contribution does go in the scheme of his world, and is
at the mercy of the reports of friends or strangers. Even
here he is bewildered; however plain the words may be,
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however just the estimate which is given him, he will not
hear exactly what is said because he cannot bring to the
moment his undivided and unemotional attention. His
intense preoccupation with his own hopes and desires spoils
him as a recording instrument. He cannot benefit by good
advice or sound criticism; nor, on the other hand, can he
know when such advice is mistaken, and the criticism not
expert. By looking, in imagination, first at himself, then at
the work he wants to do, then at the audience to whom he
hopes to appeal; and, finally, by bringing all these elements
into relation with each other, he could keep his courage
from being undermined, his mind unconfused by conflicting
advice, his estimate of his performance just.
Now, to identify ourselves too long with work we do is a bad
mistake, and a mistake through which we can be hurt and
hampered. The past few years have taught us much about
the folly of so identifying ourselves with our children that
they are rendered incapable of leading independent lives.
The mother who clings to her adult (or even adolescent)
child, suffering with him, making his decisions, undergoing
humiliation on his account, unable to live her own life fully
if he is not leading the sort of life she covets for him,
meddling with his affairs, dictating his professional and
Report excerpted from The Strangest Secret Library

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social interests, is no longer looked upon as the sum of
maternal love and wisdom.
While we may not always practice as wisely as we should,
few men and women today consider the complete
identification of themselves with their children as either
praiseworthy or desirable. We have to that extent learned
perspective about one of the most fundamental relations of
life. We know that our work as parents is to do all in our
power to equip the child to live a happy, healthy adult life,
to put up no unnecessary barriers before his independent
activities, to leave him free to select his friends and to form
his own judgments as soon as possible. What is more, we
know that it is desirable that every adult, whether parent or
child, should have his own interests, and that only the
possession of such interests will guarantee that no
unwholesome interference with the life of another will take
place. Further, no one believes for a moment that because a
saner understanding of a parent's functions is replacing the
old dictatorship, which was tyrannical even when it was
motivated by deep affection, the love between mother or
father and child is in any way decreasing.
The analogy of any finished piece of work with a child is
very close: each has to be carried, cherished, nourished as
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part of one's very self during the early stages. But with full
growth there comes a time when each should have its
independent identity.
If we intend to get all we can from living, we must learn
when to go on from one task to the next. Even the most
productive of us could contribute more than be does; our
output is about halved because we do not learn to separate
ourselves from the things that are done and put our energy
into the work which is ahead. Instead we turn and watch the
fortunes of what we have lately been engrossed in. To some
extent this is inevitable; we need to know the history and
fortunes of our finished work in so far as we can learn
anything valuable from them. But here is a place where the
average man can learn from the genius. Abundance, as
Edith Wharton has said, is the sign of the true vocation; and
that is so in any branch of life. Your true genius - whether a
Leonardo, a Dickens, a Napoleon, an Edison - is always
going on. Versatility and abundance are not, as we are
sometimes told, the signs of the mediocre workman.
When they are present in a mediocre man, they are, on the
contrary, the very things he has in common with the great
men of his profession.
Report excerpted from The Strangest Secret Library

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The Task Of The Imagination - 9
So accustomed are we to doing a piece of work, and then
standing still to contemplate what happens to it, that we
constantly wonder at those who do not make the same
error. We even, erroneously, believe that they must "drive
themselves" relentlessly in order to accomplish what they
manage to do. Now, nothing of the sort is true - or it is not
necessarily true. What has happened is that the time, the
energy, the attention which in lesser men goes into waiting
for approval, listening to comments, wondering whether
some item or other might have been better done, is going
forward and opening up new paths. It is not at all that the
healthfully prolific men and women are complacent, or
oblivious to real criticism; they know that if anything
pertinent is said they will hear it. Experience has taught
them that we are never deaf to what truly concerns us. What
they have learned is not to wait to hear comment; and so
their lives are twice as full and satisfactory as those of us
who cannot learn when to let the results of our thought and
labor, our mental offspring, go out to lead their own lives.
Imagination can bring us to understand how such sane
workers operate, and suggest ways in which we can imitate
them.
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Report excerpted from The Strangest Secret Library